Sabeen
Mahmud was killed on Apr. 24 after hosting an event in Karachi
about the brutal suppression of an ethnic nationalist insurgency in the restive
province of Balochistan. The murder of another leading Pakistani social
activist has drawn attention to the systematic elimination of the few liberal
voices in the country. Beginning with the assassination of former Prime
Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007, several outspoken critics of Pakistan’s
jihadis and their backers within the state apparatus have either been killed or
silenced by intimidation. Yet Pakistan also continues to maintain the trappings
of democracy, making it difficult for many both inside and outside Pakistan to
understand the method in the violent madness.

Pakistan’s
notorious and ubiquitous ‘deep state’ — personified by the Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI) agency — had blocked a similar event on the suppression of
the insurgency in Balochistan at other venues but Mahmud allowed the event to
take place at her café and arts space. She was killed soon after she left the
talk. Although some critics have pointed the finger at ISI, others
have raised the valid question that killing
Mahmud right after the event was bound to attract attention to the agency and
could be the work of those who wanted precisely to direct blame at the ISI.
Unexplained murders in Pakistan are often blamed on ‘foreign hands.’ In
most democratic countries, speculation about who murdered Sabeen Mahmud would
end with a proper investigation and a credible trial. But Pakistan is not like
most other democratic countries.

Pakistan
has an elected parliament and a diverse media. It allows contestation for power
among an assortment of political parties. Many Pakistanis are able to criticize
their government and debate the corruption of politicians. This creates an
illusion of Pakistan’s freedom glass being half full.

On the flip
side, there are unsolved murders of public figures and journalists; bodies of
Baloch nationalists dumped after being killed by security services; and the
attacks and threats of violence by as many as 48 Islamist terrorist groups.

Violence
in Balochistan is endemic. Last year 153 bullet-riddled bodies were recovered in Balochistan, according to human
rights groups, which blamed security services for systematically eliminating
suspected Baloch militants as well as their sympathizers. Baloch militants,
too, have been responsible for killing members of other ethnic groups whom they
see as encroachers on their traditional tribal homeland.

There is
little discussion of Balochistan in the national or international media.
Foreign journalists are not allowed to visit the province except with special
permission. Some, like the New York Times’ Carlotta Gall, have been beaten up upon arrival in Quetta, the provincial
capital, to dissuade them from looking for stories there.

The
attack on Hamid Mir followed his attempt to discuss Balochistan on his
television show and now Sabeen Mahmud’s murder has also followed an attempt to
talk about the situation in the province.

From an
international perspective, Balochistan is deemed less important than the
challenge of Islamist terrorism in Pakistan. Jihadis, some of whom have been
supported by ISI in an effort to project Pakistani power in Afghanistan and
against arch-rival India, have wreaked havoc in Pakistan for years. Several thousand Pakistanis, have died in
terrorist attacks across the country.

The
Pakistani military is engaged in battling some jihadist terrorist groups in the
country’s northwest tribal region bordering Afghanistan. But other
internationally designated terrorist groups continue to operate openly in Pakistan’s cities and their
leaders are even able to appear on national television.

The
systematic elimination of liberal voices in Pakistan can best be understood in
the context of red lines set by the ‘deep state.’ Arrogant in the assumption
that they alone know what is good for the country and what should or should not
be publicly discussed, Pakistan’s spooks allow only a ‘circumscribed
democracy.’ This explains why some ostensibly liberal Pakistanis survive while
others do not.

Subjects
that incur the wrath of the ‘deep state’ and its terrorist allies include their
atrocities in Balochistan and the persisting ties between the ISI and jihadis.
Other topics that upset them include suggesting normalization of ties with
India without resolving the Kashmir dispute or proposing curtailment of the
military’s role in policy-making.

The
killing of Sabeen Mahmud is most likely meant to be a warning to others not to
publicly discuss state enforced disappearances in Balochistan. Pakistan’s
liberals are tolerated as long as they stay within their prescribed limits.
They may discuss gender inequality and politicians’ corruption, even religious
intolerance. But questioning the ‘deep state’ and its myopic vision is where
the line is drawn.